For some reason, Pakistanis have a conspiracy theory for every incident that adversely affects them. Until now, of course, everything that was wrong with the country was blamed on a conspiracy by Indo-Zionists, who apparently were very good at disrupting life in Pakistan. Now attention has shifted to the U.S., which is believed to be responsible for almost everything bad that happens here, whether it is the sugar shortage, the rampant inflation, the flour crisis, or the recent murder of Benazir Bhutto.

The mother of all conspiracy theories of course, holds that the U.S. itself planned and executed the 9/11 tragedy. According to those who favour this line of thinking, the hijackers were not Muslim Arabs, but Arabic speaking Jews. And why would the U.S. do something which would result in the deaths of over three thousand of its residents? What a stupid question! It’s long been known that the Americans wanted control over the oil reserves of Muslim nations (although there is plenty of oil and gas in other regions of the world as well). 9/11 was therefore an excuse to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq and ultimately the oil and gas fields further north.An extension of this theory is that there is no such organization as Al-Qaeda. I know apparently normal individuals who say that all those audio and video tapes of Al-Qaeda leaders are fake, since they mostly appear when George Bush needs to bolster his sagging popularity or wants another excuse to send more troops into Iraq or Afghanistan.

And now we have another conspiracy theory. BB’s murder was neither the work of the militants nor the agencies. The proponents of this one believe that the U.S. itself engineered the assassination (to seriously destabilize Pakistan), since everyone with even limited intelligence is supposed to know that Americans can’t tolerate an Islamic country which has nuclear weapons. And for these theorists, the recent CIA disclosure about Al-Qaeda being responsible for BB’s death only proves that the Americans are deeply involved! (like they were in General Zia’s plane crash).And now for my own conspiracy theory: everything that’s happened (including 9/11) has been orchestrated by Martians. They want to occupy the earth, so they’ve poisoned the minds of people like George Bush and his neocons. They’re betting that one of these days George Bush will press the nuclear button and most living things will die. The Martians will then descend in their space ships and start living here (The Martians I know don’t need food, they can live by breathing radioactive air). They will put the few surviving humans and animals in special cages, and peace will again be restored on earth. That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it until someone comes up with another conspiracy theory which is even weirder than this one.www.chowrangi.com